In early Unix, boot and vmunix were both stored in the root directory as programs, and boot was used to start vmunix. Debian inherited this for compatibility, but the situation has changed a lot. Today, boot is stored in the root directory as a directory, which already contains the kernel files vmlinuz and initramfs. Therefore, it makes no sense to link vmlinuz and initamfs to the root directory, so the best way is to remove them from the root directory.
Chesters fence
In early Unix, boot and vmunix were both stored in the root directory as programs, and boot was used to start vmunix. Debian inherited this for compatibility, but the situation has changed a lot. Today, boot is
stored in the root directory as a directory, which already contains the kernel files vmlinuz and initramfs. Therefore, it makes no sense to link vmlinuz and initamfs to the root directory, so the best way is to remove
them from the root directory.
Am Dienstag, 12. November 2024, 07:14:34 CET schrieb kindusmith:
In very early linux, as far as I remember in SuSE-Linux, the kernel was installed in a small partition /boot (about 3 or 4 sizes of the kernel) and a
link ponting to the kernel on the root-partitiion (the one, mounted to "/")
This got some advantages. If you have a very big root poartition and the kernel was installed there, then it was possible, the system could not boot, because the kernel was not found. The reason for this was, the BIOS could not
handle the size of this big partition.
To fix this and get not in trouble, the idea was to make a small partition which got the kernel and can be booted, then after the kernel has started, BIOS is no more used, because the kernel is handling the paretitiions. Andthe
kernel can handle very, very big partitions.
The sesond advantage of putting the kernel so, is , you can mount the kernel partition read-only, so it can not be harmed by any malware.
For the uprading procedure it is possible (with a little script), to make this
partition writable, and automatically read-only after upgrade is done.
(If someone is interested in this, I will paste the script here, these are only 4 lines).
I might remember, the seperated /boot partition was also default in RedHat, Mandriva and SLAX, but I am not quite sure. It is now a long time ago!
However, maybe a link is alo no more needed, even with a seperated /boot partition.
In early Unix, boot and vmunix were both stored in the root directory
as programs, and boot was used to start vmunix. Debian inherited this
for compatibility, but the situation has changed a lot. Today, boot is
stored in the root directory as a directory, which already contains
the kernel files vmlinuz and initramfs. Therefore, it makes no sense
to link vmlinuz and initamfs to the root directory, so the best way is
to remove them from the root directory.
On Tue, Nov 12, 2024 at 02:14:34PM +0800, kindusmith wrote:
In early Unix, boot and vmunix were both stored in the root directory as programs, and boot was used to start vmunix. Debian inherited this for compatibility, but the situation has changed a lot. Today, boot is
stored in the root directory as a directory, which already contains the kernel files vmlinuz and initramfs. Therefore, it makes no sense to link vmlinuz and initamfs to the root directory, so the best way is to remove them from the root directory.
You may alter /etc/kernel-img.conf however you wish.
The question is why on a default install with grub, which doesn't needAgreed.
nor use the symlinks, are they still created. For most systems, they're superfluous.
iustin, who also dislikes these and always needs to disable them
On 2024-11-12 12:45:47, Michael Stone wrote:
On Tue, Nov 12, 2024 at 02:14:34PM +0800, kindusmith wrote:
In early Unix, boot and vmunix were both stored in the root directory as programs, and boot was used to start vmunix. Debian inherited this for compatibility, but the situation has changed a lot. Today, boot is
stored in the root directory as a directory, which already contains the kernel files vmlinuz and initramfs. Therefore, it makes no sense to link vmlinuz and initamfs to the root directory, so the best way is to remove them from the root directory.
You may alter /etc/kernel-img.conf however you wish.
The question is why on a default install with grub, which doesn't need
nor use the symlinks, are they still created. For most systems, they're superfluous.
iustin, who also dislikes these and always needs to disable them
On Tue, Nov 12, 2024 at 02:14:34PM +0800, kindusmith wrote:
In early Unix, boot and vmunix were both stored in the root directory as >> > programs, and boot was used to start vmunix. Debian inherited this for
compatibility, but the situation has changed a lot. Today, boot is
stored in the root directory as a directory, which already contains the
kernel files vmlinuz and initramfs. Therefore, it makes no sense to link >> > vmlinuz and initamfs to the root directory, so the best way is to remove >> > them from the root directory.
You may alter /etc/kernel-img.conf however you wish.
The question is why on a default install with grub, which doesn't need
nor use the symlinks, are they still created. For most systems, they're >superfluous.
Indeed. But even the comment, by itself, I think raises a question - why
do we (still) do this?
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